Crooks

• Crooks tends to protect his peace by putting a wall of dignity around him

  • He also has pride. He is not the descendent of slaves, he tells Lennie, but a descendant of landowners instead
  • In several places in the story, Steinbeck shows Crooks' dignity and pride when he draws himself up and will not "accept charity" from anyone
• Lynchings were violent public acts that white people used to terrorize and control Black people in the 19th and 20th centuries, particularly in the South